Single Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) screens are used in various monitors to display two-dimensional images. LCD screens typically have a light source, a first polarizing filter, a liquid crystal layer, and a second polarizing filter. Generally, the first polarizing filter polarizes light originating from an unpolarized light source. The second polarizing filter is set to the same polarizational state as the first polarizing filter. Thus, light polarized from the first filter is passed through the second filter without attenuation. However, when an electrical field is applied locally to the liquid crystal layer, the crystals modify the polarization state of the light incoming from the first polarization filter. If the modified polarization state is orthogonal to the first filter, the newly polarized light will be prevented from passing through the second polarization filter. In this manner, portions of a monitor will appear to be on or off to a viewer based on the electrical field applied to the crystal layer. Commonly, the polarizational state for a flat-panel LCD screen is purely linear, and the light viewed by the user of a flat-panel display is linearly polarized.
Single LCD screens are highly useful in presenting information to a viewer. Indeed, they are used in mobile phones, television monitors, computer screens, watches, and many other applications. Although highly useful, single LCD screens are limited in their ability to present three-dimensional images. Typically, shaded surface, hidden line, and perspective rendering methods are used to create the illusion of three-dimensions for such models on a single screen. The illusion of a three-dimensional image can also be achieved by using more than one LCD screen stacked at different distances from a viewer. In this configuration, each screen contains a planar slice of a real three-dimensional model, and the viewer integrates the multiple planar slices into a three-dimensional image. Although desirable results have been achieved generating three-dimensional images using these methods, there is room for improvement